Geo-Note 2003-25

Geo-Note 2003-25

This report details the acquisition, characteristics and processing of the orthorectified and principal component RADARSAT-1 images for NTS map area 84F by the Alberta Geological Survey (AGS). The acquisition of the original RADARSAT-1 scene imagery was made through a Provincial Partnership Memorandum of Understanding. Original RADARSAT-1 path images (SGF) have been purchased by Alberta Sustainable Resource Development (SRD) from RADARSAT International (RSI) and then made available to AGS, based on an agreement that AGS would pay for orthorectification of the original RADARSAT-1 imagery in exchange for obtaining the value-added imagery for public distribution.

This resulted in acquisition of coverage for all of northern Alberta (north of 55 degrees north latitude) for Standard Beam Modes S1 and S7 in both ascending and descending look directions. This imagery is available at a nominal resolution of 12.5m. Two hundred and fifty scenes have been orthorectified and, in total, cover northern Alberta (north of 55 degrees north latitude) in the four beam positions. They were tiled to 25 1:250 000 scale NTS map areas. The image file for each NTS map contains four layers to accommodate four images from the four beam positions. These four layers were then used for principal component analysis to produce an image file for each NTS map area containing four layers holding PC1, PC2, PC3 and PC4 images. The orthorectified and principal component RADARSAT-1 images for NTS map area 73M is one of the 25 NTS-tiled products to be delivered to the public by AGS. It will permit users to further process and interpret the RADARSAT-1 data to obtain geoscience, environmental, forestry or other information.